Genocide averted, Iraq crisis persists

“It doesn’t matter that there are only 500,000 or 600,000 Yazidis in the world, and maybe only 50,000 of them on that mountain,” he said. “The intent for group destruction was very clear and there was a specific instance … that it was clear that a massacre was very likely to occur that would have been part of a broader genocidal movement — if had not been arrested.”

Hudson acknowledged that politicians and United Nations officials have abused the threat of “genocide” in the past to create sympathy, generate awareness and raise money.

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“‘Genocide’ has been misused and misappropriated in many, many ways for many, many years, and that causes people to be skeptical of its use,” he said. “However, in this case, I think it was an entirely appropriate and timely use of the word.”

The broader threat from ISIL endures, however, and its political outlook remains murky. Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said Thursday he would step down and recognize the appointment of his successor, Haider al-Abadi, but Baghdad still may need several more weeks to organize itself.

Obama said Thursday he’d spoken with Abadi and given him the same pitch he’s been giving all along: Iraq must establish a government that will enfranchise everyone in its population, in the hope that it can entice northern Sunnis away from ISIL and then begin to combat the terrorist army.

The good news, Obama said, is that Abadi is on board.

“He spoke about the need for the kind of inclusive government — a government that speaks to all the people of Iraq,” Obama said. “He still has a challenging task in putting a government together, but we are modestly hopeful that the Iraqi government situation is moving in the right direction.”

A new “modest hope” is what passes for good news in a week that the Iraq crisis and ongoing unrest outside St. Louis forced Obama to break away from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. Bloodthirsty ISIL terrorists continue to hold large swaths of Iraqi territory, Iraq’s military remains impotent and, critics charge, Obama is no closer to making any real progress there.

Foreign and defense policy scholar Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said Obama has been entirely too timid in tackling ISIL, which also calls itself the Islamic State.

“The airstrikes the administration authorized — only in northern Iraq, mind you — will not be enough to turn the tide against IS,” she said this week. “Recall where this began, in Syria. There was no IS back in 2011. It is wholly an outgrowth of the conflict in Syria, and the failure of Western powers to intervene in the face of growing Qatari (and other) support for Al Qaeda. Now, three years later, IS dominates an increasingly large and strategically important area of both Syria and Iraq.”

The Obama administration doesn’t dispute the danger ISIL poses but is sticking by its position that the job of dealing with it decisively belongs to Abadi and the Kurds.